10 Biggest News Stories of Next Year

As the paparazzi of Time looks up the celebrity’s skirt of Destiny, and the banker of History robs the taxpayer of Fate, it’s time to face the fact that 2009 is less than 24 hours away.

The year 2008 brought Olympic joy and horrific natural disasters, and saw the global credit crunch bite hardest in the US, the UK and Iceland, as bankers and politicians unwittingly revealed a basic lack of understanding of fundamental maths and physics: that making an unsustainable thing even bigger, will soon make it blow up in your face.

Fortunately for you, dear blog reader, I have already peeked into the future, and picked up the ten biggest news stories of 2009, to save you the hassle of reading them later when they actually occur, as they undoubtedly will (Legal Disclaimer: they almost certainly won’t, so don’t sue us), across the globe.

Hold onto your hats, here they come…

Jay Chou seeks RMB 3.9billion Government Bailout
January 15th, 2009. The global credit crunch starts to have a huge impact on major corporations’ advertising spending across Asia, leading to the Taiwan-born pop singer Jay suddenly being booted from campaigns for China Mobile, Pepsi, those horrible chips in a tube that imitate Pringles, Lipton tea, MetersBonwe clothing, and dozens of the hundreds of ad campaigns that he does. With no other source of income (no-one makes money from CDs anymore), Jay has no choice but to seek a multi-billion RMB government bailout so as not to have to cease production of himself. Jay Chou employs 80,000 people and accounts for 19% of Taiwan’s GDP.

Obama admits: “This job not as much fun as I thought“
Newly inaugurated president of the US, Barack Obama, in just his first full month in the job, causes a national outrage when he concedes in an interview with MSNBC news that his new post is “not as much fun as I thought“, and even goes so far to say as it’s “damn tiring“. He elaborates further: “No sooner have I finished a 13-hour day sorting out bankrupt automakers, then that damn Ahmadinejad says another stupid thing and I’ve got to go on TV to be interviewed about his idiot ramblings. Jeeeez.“

Somalian pirates are lingerie fetishists
Somalian pirates escalate their hijackings of container ships that began in late 2008. In a shock development, one pirate leader leaks a video to the Al-Jazeera TV station in which he explains he’s a major bra and pantie fetishist, and is trying to collect as many as possible, by targeting container ships from China carrying Chinese-made women’s undergarments. A global bra and pantie shortage causes price hikes of as much as 80% in Europe and the US.

UK put up for sale on eBay
A practical joker put the entire United Kingdom up for sale on eBay, on April 1st 2009, with the description, “A once-proud nation of a once-proud people, now bankrupt and up for sale.“ But the prank got into the international headlines when the be-wigged American tycoon Donald Trump actually bought it for 100 million Euros with the intention of turning the UK into the world’s biggest golf course.

GM and Chrysler build car powered by baby’s tears and kitten’s tails
May 2009. Two of the largest American automakers, GM and Chrysler, find themselves once again on the brink of bankruptcy when they both release new SUVs powered only by baby’s tears and kitten’s tails. After international condemnation of GM and Chrysler’s actions, the two corporations CEOs release a statement which says: “What’s the freaking problem now? It doesn’t run on oil; I thought that’s what you people wanted. We considered using hydrogen cell technology, but we couldn’t be bothered investing in it, so we figured that baby’s tears and kitten’s tails would do instead.“

Sarkozy the Show-off
French president Nicolas Sarkozy is berated by fellow European Union leaders for constantly showing off about his former-supermodel wife, Carla Bruni. In an EU meeting to discuss environmental policies, Sarkozy began every single contribution he made to the discussion with the words, “As I was saying to my wife, Carla, in bed last night…“.

Mail-order brides, made in the USA
In a staggering switch in economic fortunes, it is revealed by a Newsweek report that Chinese businessmen are driving a massive rise in mail-order brides from the USA. A businessman from Guangdong province, who owns a women’s underwear-producing factory (which was badly hit by the rise in piracy off the coast of Somalia earlier in ’09) identified only as Mr. Xu, aged 59, explained to Newsweek, “I needed a new wife, and at first I was going to opt for a mail-order bride from Thailand or the Philippines, but then I checked my bank balance and thought I may as well go for what would give me the most face among my friends. I ordered one from Texas, just 19.“

Not enough muscles for Windows touchscreen
A new computer-operating system released by Microsoft Corporation, called ‘Touch Me’, has been drawing very poor reviews from early reviewers and users, who find themselves unable to hold up their arm for hours in order to touch their desktop computer screen. The new Windows user interface is entirely touch-sensitive, with no keyboard or mouse needed. But ‘Touch Me’ users are finding themselves exhausted after a mere 10 minutes of holding up their arms to touch the screen. One French businessman complained to Reuters: “After two days of using ‘Touch Me’ I’m getting muscle spasms in my right arm, and occasionally my right arm just pops out of my socket.“ In response, a Microsoft support article posted on their website suggests, “Try laying your computer monitor on the floor, or holding it in your lap“

Palestine and Israel back to ‘Square One’
In a rare instance of agreement between Israel and Palestine, both states have agreed that they’re “pretty much back to square one.“ During a UN-organised summit between Palestine’s Hamas party and the Israeli government, officials from both sides of the warring divide declared that firing rockets on each other for a few months, and then settling for a terse truce, followed by a few more months of cross-border rockets and shelling, has not been resulting in the kind of progress they’d been hoping for.

Innuendo plagues Google searches
Google’s search results have been inadvertently insulting users by giving inaccurate results that are skewed by lewd innuendo, according to complaints from thousands of users. One office worker from Australia told he Associated Press, “Yesterday I was working in the office and I googled ‘magician’s sleeve’, and I couldn’t believe the results Google gave me. I nearly got fired when my boss saw all the nudity on my screen.” Likewise, an 80-year old German woman got the fright of her life when she googled the phrase ‘trouser ferret’ at the behest of her mischievous grandson.